At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Yuma International Airport lost up to 80 percent of its load capacity and saw dramatic changes to airport operations, according to Airport Director Gladys Brown.
"Everyone in the industry is trying to figure out what else we need to do to make it safe to fly, make it safe to use our facilities and then get people to slowly be reintroduced to what we remember prior to March of 2020," said Airport Director Gladys Brown.
Over the Labor Day weekend, airports saw a surge in air travelers. The Transportation Safety Administration says agents screened more travelers over the holiday weekend than it had on any day since March when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Yuma International Airport has seen a slow and steady increase in air travel, Brown says during an episode of Arizona Edition with KAWC's Lou Gum.
The airport uses load capacity as a metric for travelers. That is how many people are on the plane and how full it is compared to the number of flights coming in and out.
"We have had a huge reduction in frequencies," said Brown. Those represent the number of flights at Yuma's Airport. "We used to have six daily, five to Phoenix one to Dallas Ft. Worth now we have been reduced by two-thirds."
The airport director said business travel is what could be driving the steady return for travelers. Amongst that is military personnel flying into Yuma International Airport to get to the military installations in Yuma.
